Katherine Rundell-tightrope walker, cartwheeler, academic, and author-was born in 1987 and grew up in Africa and Europe. In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her first book, The Girl Savage, was born of her love of Zimbabwe and her own childhood there. Her second, Rooftoppers (Winner of the Blue Peter Book Award, Waterstones Children's Book Prize, and shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Prize  and the CILIP Carnegie Medal), was inspired by summers working in Paris and by night-time trespassing on the rooftops of All Souls. She is currently working on her doctorate alongside an adult novel. She lives in Oxford, UK.

Author photo copyright Nina Subin.